Life in Port Elizabeth

Greetings, blog enthusiasts!  It has only been a week since Gretchen and I embarked on our Southern Hemisphere adventure.  However, we have been incredibly busy acclimating ourselves to Port Elizabeth and its surrounding areas, so it seems like we’ve been here longer…in a good way!  Every day it seems we wake up and say, “Another beautiful day in Port Elizabeth!”  So, in this particular post, I will show you some of the incredible sights we have seen.  Allow the tour to begin….

This first picture is of a place within a 15 minute walk of our residence called The Boardwalk (cue Under the Boardwalk if you’ve got it, and sing along).  It has many shops and restaurants for us to try out, and we’ve gotten to a good start with El Greco…a wonderful Greek restaurant where we had immensely satisfying meals.  A bonus:  all of their wine was under $25 a bottle!  There is also a casino there which looks to be populated mostly by slot machines and a buffet that was not nearly as good as we had hoped.  Aside from that, there is a theatre and a…and I know this will shock your socks off…a boardwalk!  Yes, the boardwalk goes around a small man made pond that is very stunning at night.

 

This next scene is from a South African pizza chain called Debonairs.  I am enjoying their ‘four seasons’ pizza (ironically with five ingredients: pepperoni salami, mushroom, olives, green pepper and onion).  You can see the ocean behind me in the near distance.

 

 

Here is a good view from the balcony of our flat.  We are on the second floor and that green at the bottom is a roof below.  Anyway, behind Gretchen you can see the ocean and how close we are to it!  Literally, a two minute walk.

 

Across from The Boardwalk is a pier called Shark Tooth Pier.  Not much to say about this one…just a nice picture.

 

The next two pictures are of coastal rock formations.  I have never seen anything like them.  The first is at one end of Marine Drive (the main road along the beach).   The other is what is found closer to where we are staying.  However, in between these rock formations are beautiful sand beaches, many of them given the highest ratings.  The juxtaposition of the beaches right next to the rocky parts is incredibly peculiar.  In the first picture, all of that dark stuff is rock, not seaweed or anything else.

 

 

 

One thing Gretchen and I have noticed is the interesting advertising here.  A lot of humor is used, and for reasons unexplainable, this poster for CokeTM cracks me up!  If you cannot read it, the smaller text says, “It’s BRRR!!! on the Coke side of lifeTM”

The penultimate picture of this post is taken at a local bar called Barney’s.  We stopped there and had a garlic cheese roll (and I partook in the local brew, Castle).  You can see Shark Tooth Pier in the background and again, the beautiful weather.

 

 

Today (Sunday), Gretchen and I went to a flea market that was a bit past The Boardwalk.  There are many vendors with beautiful goods from all over Africa, or so they claim.  I suppose I’ll just have to take their word for it until I find the “Made in Taiwan”.  Anyway, here is Gretchen standing in it, you can see some of the vendors.  All of them were very nice and told us that they would “Give a good discount” JUST FOR US!!!  (We’re so lucky!)

Those are my photographs for now.  Don’t let your heart be troubled, we are far from done taking pictures!  However, I start my ‘official’ student teaching this week, so my next post will be about that experience!